CNN
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The Ecuadorian army revealed how they captured the country’s most wanted man, Dr. Adolfo “Phito” Macia.

After almost 18 months of manhunt for the leader of criminal group Los Ceneros, Ecuadorian security block made a breakthrough on June 25th.

Authorities immediately travelled to the area, began a 10-hour operation, and attempted to find and capture the infamous gang. To prevent the attack from being blocked, the military and police closed access within a 15-block radius, with no one allowed to enter or depart the site.

Special teams from the military eventually entered the property to gather more information and control the House.

It was a well-equipped villa with pool, gym, appliances, games room, marble-like walls and features that show the property is still under construction.

One area of ​​the house included a bunker with fully camouflaged holes in the floor and with hidden access and air conditioning.

“The police and the military on the scene began searching with instruments to see where the alias ‘Fito’ was hiding,” said Ecuadorian Home Minister John Lenberg.

As surveillance flights were identifying irregular crop fields behind the house, authorities requested the use of excavators to find the drug lord.

“They began to excavate. As soon as this happened, if we continued, the roof of his bunker would collapse, causing Fit to panic. At that moment he opened the hatch where the army was already located and climbed up from the hole he had been hiding.

The soldiers pinned Macia to the ground, ordered him to put his weapon in the first place and tossed his full name out loud.

“Adolfo Mathias Villamar,” he said footage from the Army showed him, lying on the floor.

After the surgery, authorities arrested Macia, and four other men were identified as part of his security details.

Macias was immediately relocated to Manta Air Force Base, then to Guayaquil Air Force Base. From there he was taken to the largest security Laroca prison in the Guayaquil Prison complex behind the Rajoul prison where he escaped in January 2024.

A photo released later by the Home Office showed a drug lord trapped inside his phone.

President Daniel Novore said Ecuador is working to hand him over to the US — he faces drug and weapons charges — and is waiting for a response from American officials.

Macias is one of Ecuador’s most notorious gangsters and is the only founding member of Los Ceneros, believed to be still alive. In 2011 he was sentenced to a think tank insight crime “due to a series of crimes, including murder and drug trafficking,” but was recaptured several months after he left prison in February 2013.

Little is known about his life before the crime, but he gained a reputation as a gang money laundering expert during his jail time for over a decade.

Before he escaped prison in 2024, the government had planned to move Macia to a higher security facility. Novoa’s secretary spokesperson told local channels that the news had probably reached Macia and urged him to escape.

CNN
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Israeli forces have denied new reports that soldiers have been ordered to fire on unarmed Palestinians awaiting humanitarian assistance in Gaza after hundreds of people were reported to have been killed in recent weeks while approaching food distribution sites.

On Friday, the Daily Harletts newspaper published an article claiming that Israeli soldiers in Gaza had been instructed by their commanders to shoot a Palestinian crowd approaching the aid site.

One soldier, who spoke anonymously with Haaretz, described the approach route to aid sites as a “sacrificed field” in which Israel will cause fires, even if there is no immediate threat. According to this article, Israeli forces recently began dispersing shells across the crowd, resulting in a sharp increase in casualties.

“We strongly reject the charges raised in the article. The IDF did not instruct the military to intentionally shoot civilians, including those approaching the distribution centre,” the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) said in response to the article. “To be clear, the IDF directive prohibits intentional attacks on civilians.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz rejected the report as “a malicious lie designed to trust the IDF, the world’s most moral army.”

More than 500 Palestinians have been killed since May 27 and since May 27th, more than 500 Palestinians have been killed as they approached aid sites or trucks carrying trucks. The Palestinians approached the site and fired on a near-base basis when health officials and emergency responders said.

In one such incident earlier this month, more than dozens of witnesses, including those injured in the attack, told CNN that Israeli forces shot crowds with repeated volleys of gunfire. Weapons experts said the shooting rate heard on footage and the images of bullets recovered from the victims matched the machine guns used by Israeli forces.

On multiple occasions, the IDF has allowed to fire what is called a “warning shot” with Palestinians approaching military positions near the aid distribution site. He also said he is investigating victim reports, but the findings so far have not been published.

According to Haaretz, the military advocacy general has directed the IDF’s general staff fact-finding assessment mechanism (thinking cases that include potential violations of war law) to investigate suspected war crimes near the aid site.

“An allegations of deviation from the law or IDF directive will be thoroughly considered and further action will be taken as necessary,” the IDF said Friday.

CNN has contacted the IDF for additional comments.

The Gaza aid site where the death occurred is run by the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) of Israeli-US Support. The group’s distribution was confusing from the beginning a month ago, with hopeless Palestinian crowds rushing through the site the moment they opened, often within an hour, before making available assistance.

The GHF was established to replace the UN aid distribution mechanism that Israel and the United States accused of looting Hamas. Hamas rejects these claims, and humanitarian groups say that most of the undispersed food aid reaches civilians.

The GHF coordinated with the Israeli military to designate specific routes for Palestinians traveling to aid sites, and has received acute criticism from aid experts. It acknowledges several episodes of violence occurring outside of immediate aid sites, but it repeatedly described it as “going through without any issues” with food distribution work.

In response to Haaretz’s report, the organization said it was “unaware” of the specific incident described. Nevertheless, “these allegations are too heavy to ignore, so we ask Israel to investigate them and make the results transparent and timely.”

On Thursday, the US State Department announced it would award $30 million to the organization. It says it is an ongoing sign of US support for the GHF, distributing 46 million meals in four weeks of operation.

CNN
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Russia has gathered 110,000 troops near Pokrovsk as part of its efforts to take over the strategic eastern Ukrainian city, the Ukrainian military chief said on Friday.

Oleksandr Syrskyi said on Friday that the area around Pokrovsk is the “hottest place” along the 1,200-kilometer (745 miles) frontline that runs east.

The Russians had been trying to capture Pokrovsk for almost a year, making offensive attacks one after another. However, despite having distinct advantages in terms of the number of troops and weapons available, Moscow failed to take over the city.

Pokrovsk is a strategic target in Moscow. Russian President Vladimir Putin has made it clear that his goal is to partially occupy the eastern Ukraine regions of Donetsk and Luhansk.

Kiev and his allies accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of stagnating peace efforts, allowing his troops to seize more Ukrainian territory.

Although not a major city, Pokrovsk sits on the main supply roads and railways that connect with other military hubs in the region. Along with Kostiantynivka, Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, they will form the backbone of Ukrainian defence in parts of the Donetsk region, still under Kyiv’s control.

About 60,000 people lived in Pokrovsk before the war, but most have left in three years since Russia began its full-scale invasion in February 2022.

Ukraine’s last operating Koh mine was in Pokrovsk, and many of its employees were staying in the area to continue doing so. When they were forced to close early this year, they began to leave too.

The WAR Institute (ISW), a US-based conflict monitor, said Ukrainian defence operations in Pokrovsk late last year forced Russia to abandon its original plan to take over Pokrovsk in a frontal attack.

ISW said this was because Ukrainian forces began using drones as an integral part of their defensive strategy, consolidating drone operators and ground forces.

At the same time, Russia was unable to significantly increase the number of troops in the region as it was trying to contain the surprising invasion of Ukrainian troops into its own territory in the southern Kursk region.

Silsky told reporters last week that at one point, Kursk’s operations had pulled back nearly 63,000 Russian troops and around 7,000 North Korean troops.

“This has allowed us to reduce pressure on the enemy’s main fronts and reorganize our troops. And the capture of enemy Pokrovsk, announced in September 2024, has not yet happened thanks to Operation Kursk,” he said.

Instead of continuing to attack the cities directly, Russian forces began surrounding the cities from the south and northeast.

In its latest assessment on Friday, ISW said the Russian troops continue to attack with 1-2 soldiers’ small fires, sometimes motorcycles, with all-terrain vehicles and buggies.

In a statement issued Friday, Sirksky said Russia continued to plunge into the administrative borders of the Donetsk region.

“They want to do this not only for achieving some operational outcomes, but primarily for empirical purposes. To achieve psychological effects: to place the infamous “Russian soldier’s feet” there, plant the flag and trumpet another pseudo-‘Victory’,” he said.